Abstract

For a few decades now, debates around the effects of 'new public measures' in education have pointed to how the emphasis on increased accountability and high stakes testing has led to some worrying phenomena, thus changing teachers' practices and roles. These include narrowing of the curriculum, gaming and teaching to the test. This chapter discusses these kinds of knowledge and abilities as fundamentally depending on our understanding of the role of teachers within an educational system and in relation to educational aims. The particular standpoint from which it tackles these issues revolves around asking whether the notion of autonomy is significant to teachers' roles and activities, and hence bears on our conception of teaching expertise. The chapter argues that the notion of autonomy is problematic: it conflates rather different psychological, phenomenological and normative elements. The discussion in the chapter culminates in an analysis of current policy arrangements in England.