Abstract

In Britain the wider realities of a profession played an all-important role in determining the nature of a specific Party professional group. Communist teachers largely concentrated on "politically working" in the teaching unions, in particular the National Union of Teachers, and were careful about adopting a "Communist approach" in their teaching, as to have done otherwise would have risked dismissal. Where the teachers' group did take a position on teaching practice it tended to set itself against those "progressive" ideologists who were deemed to be undermining the importance of the teacher in the educational process. In part this was due to how Soviet educational practices and theories were received and the dominance in the group of Max Morris and his close associates, but the particular position of school teaching with its somewhat insecure status no doubt encouraged a "line" which highlighted the "professional importance of the school teacher.".