Reconceptualizing effective professional development for teachers: shifting from causal chains and generativity to complexity and employee-centrism

Abstract

Focused on the epistemic development of the teacher professional development research field, this conceptual paper presents a European perspective that promotes a wider conceptualization of professional development than is evident in the mainstream scholarship spawned by the U.S.A’.s accountability era. The dominant theoretical perspective–what the author calls ‘employee-centrism’ - reflects a ‘positive organizational scholarship’ that is becoming recognized within organization studies, the sociology of work, and work psychology. Employee-centrism reflects a wide interpretation of employee well-being, manifested as the incorporation into organizational policy and practice of altruistic, rather than ulterior-motivated, care and compassion. In limiting effectiveness to what may be evidenced as generating student achievement, teacher professional development as conceived of in mainstream scholarship, it is argued, falls short in two respects: first, it reflects a simplistic conceptualization that disregards the complexity of professional development, and its capacity to occur implicitly and often imperceptibly; and, second, it reflects a perspective on teachers as conduits for reform implementation, rather than as primary developees in their own right. Within a new, post-COVID, era in which the importance of workplace well-being is increasingly highlighted, there is an imperative to reconceptualize what makes for effective teacher professional development.