Do men still manage while women teach? Using four reports on middle schooling to portray continuities and changes in teachers' work in the 1990s.

Whitehead, Kay

This article examines the ways in which primary, secondary and middle school teachers are represented in four Australian reports on middle schooling in the 1990s. All reports argue for changes in school culture in the middle years but portrayals of each group of teachers reinforce the gender order in contemporary schools. Although there are continuities in the ways teachers are discussed across the reports, a focus on action research and the discourse of teacher as researcher appears in the two most recent documents. The final section of the article considers the potential of this discourse to reconstruct teachers' work and challenge the gender order of the occupation. It concludes that if the positive potential of teachers as researchers is to be realised, then primary, secondary and middle school teachers, men and women, must be participants in all types of research which inform middle schooling.

In the last decade or so, there has been a resurgence of interest in middle schooling across Australia. The middle schooling movement initially took its cue from the Turning points report (Carnegie Council, 1989) and other North American research (Hargreaves & Earl, 1990) but there has been a steady stream of locally commissioned reports beginning with the Report of the Junior Secondary Review (hereafter JSR) (Eyers, Cormack, & Barratt, 1992) which was completed in South Australia in 1992. This article will examine ways in which teachers are represented in the JSR and three other reports which were published in the 1990s. These are the first national report on middle schooling, In the middle: Schooling for young adolescents (Schools Council, 1993), a three volume report, From alienation to engagement: Opportunities for reform in the middle years of schooling (Cumming & Cormack, 1996) and a more recent publication, Shaping middle schooling: A report of the National Middle Schooling Project (Barratt, 1998). It will be shown that, in each of these reports, there are critiques of primary and secondary teachers which are underpinned by discourses of gender and age. The reports also identify characteristics of `ideal' middle school teachers. Although there are significant continuities in the ways teachers are being constructed across the reports, the discourse of teacher as researcher appears in the two most recent documents. The final section of this article will consider what potential this discourse might have to reconstruct teachers' work and challenge the gender order of the occupation.

The JSR was commissioned in June 1991 to investigate the education of young adolescents in the junior secondary years and then extended to encompass the upper primary years. Thus the review team was able to analyse both primary and secondary cultures and develop an argument that `middle schooling must develop a unique culture of its own'(Eyers et al., 1992, p. 15). In order to establish the need for a unique middle school culture, the JSR marginalised both primary and secondary teachers, albeit from different angles (Whitehead, 2000). The report acknowledged teaching as women's work in primary schools (Eyers et al., 1992, p. 9) and then portrayed junior primary classrooms as a `nuclear family, albeit with one "parent", the teacher' in a brief discussion of this sector (pp. 52-54). However it differentiated junior from upper primary teachers by claiming that, among the latter group, care is linked to oppressive forms of control (see also pp. 14, 35) in the classroom. This section suggested that generalist primary teachers might not be challenging students intellectually or meeting young adolescents' developmental needs as their interests shift from the private to the public sphere. The report argued that students need to interact with a range of teachers who can act as `mentors' and `at the most basic level, for example, students can benefit from access to a teacher of the same gender' (p. 54). Upper primary teachers were also depicted as apolitical, isolated individuals who never stepped outside their classrooms.

Following the section on primary schools was an equally problematic portrayal of secondary teachers as excessively attached to curriculum content (rather than getting to know their students as learners), didactic pedagogy and authoritarian discipline. In secondary classrooms `quiet girls' and students from non-English-speaking backgrounds go `undetected and unsupported' while `students who "act-out" become outsiders' (pp. 55-56). However, the problem is not attributed to the deficits of individual teachers. Instead, `all of it is a direct consequence of the secondary model of schooling' (p. 56). Elsewhere, the JSR repeated Hargreaves and Earl's (1990) argument that `subjects are not simply curriculum classifications but the basis of the political and social structure of the school' (p. 92). Furthermore, `secondary school teachers' identities and allegiances are formed through them' (p. 93). In comparison with primary teachers, secondary teachers seemed to be hidebound by their political, social and intellectual attachments to subject departments.

In effect, the caring and controlling upper primary teacher stood in stark contrast to the secondary subject specialist in the JSR but, aside from Hargreaves and Earl (1990), no sources of evidence for these representations of teachers were identified. There were few explicit references to gender as far as teachers were concerned, but there seemed to be a reliance on `commonsense' understandings of primary schools as feminine and secondary schools as masculine in the report. The female upper primary teacher who smothers her students contrasted with the secondary teacher, a male who cares more for his subject than his students. Although both were marginalised, the gender order was supported by portraying secondary school culture as more powerful than primary. The report was adamant that when secondary and primary teachers are brought together the former culture `takes over' (Eyers et al., 1992, p. 15, see also pp. 87, 93).

When the current cohort of teachers was considered together, the JSR was concerned about the `aging force of teachers' (p. 163) and argued that this was an impediment to the education of young adolescents. Discussions of teaching and learning in chapter five and training and development in chapter seven were underpinned by the discourse of the ageing teacher in both primary and secondary schools who will require time and encouragement to `see the need for change' (p. 131). The report advocated school-based professional development for teachers to improve their skills and knowledge of `students' personal needs' (p. 160). Indeed, the JSR seemed to portray the ageing teacher as being out of touch with the lives of young adolescents as well as current theory and practice in classrooms. However the discourse of the ageing teacher was not applied to school management: `Both primary and secondary principals seemed glad of the chance to question and reflect on practices so old that they have also lost their considered origins' (p. 46). The review team consulted with district superintendents and principals about a range of issues as well as the `key directions for the education of young adolescents' (p. 11) but reported to teachers through newsletters. As has long been the case, school leaders' opinions seemed to be constructed as authoritative and they participate in policy formation whereas teachers are only involved in implementation at the school level. Given that administration of schools and the South Australian Education Department were mostly in men's hands in 1992 (Milligan, 1994) when this document was written, the long-standing adage that men manage and women teach (Acker, 1995; Strober & Tyack, 1980) was reinforced by the JSR.

Besides focusing on primary and secondary teachers, the JSR endeavoured to construct an ideal middle school teacher who would fill the `culture gap [which] has been left in the middle' (Eyers et al., 1992, p. 14). In an extended discussion of teacher-student relationships (pp. 45-49), the report emphasised the need for adult mentors for this generation of students, noting in particular that `in many households a reliable and positive male role model may not be found' (p. 45). By implication, the middle school teacher will be a male who will establish `rewarding and non-dependent relationships' (p. 46) with his students. The JSR carefully constructed a version of interpersonal caring based on emotional distance and rationality using `a style we call "tough love"' (p. 47) as the appropriate model for the middle school teacher. The report was adamant that the middle school teacher will mentor students in a paternal rather than fraternal way. It was noted that this kind of relationship doesn't mean being a `buddy', and that it extends beyond `pastoral care' of a large group. It may mean adults being more of a mentor, for young adults need to feel there is a reasonable adult who will listen to them and sometimes speak for them. (p. 47)

The middle school teacher is also expected to possess `a degree of special knowledge in a number of areas of study in order to provide the challenge required in the curriculum' (p. 62). In these matters, he would be more closely aligned with secondary than primary teachers.

One of the JSR's major recommendations was that middle schools should be organised as learning communities of up to six teachers (p. 58) who work with the same cohort of students most of the time. It argued that there should be a mix of teachers with primary and secondary experience and that the `natural benefits of close relationships' (p. 71) in primary classrooms could be replicated by subdividing each learning community into teaching teams and giving them the responsibility for pastoral care. In view of the JSR's portrayal of primary teaching as an extension of mothering, could it be that the core teaching team is meant to be a reconstituted family where the middle school mentor will be the patriarch, the reliable male role model, and there will also be a female role model for the girls? Lesko (1994) argues that the discourse of the middle school as a surrogate family underpinned much of the Turning points (Carnegie Council, 1989) report which, in turn, significantly influenced the JSR.

Like the caring and controlling upper primary teacher who does not exist outside the classroom, middle school teachers are represented as apolitical in the JSR, and do not seem to operate aside from their learning community. They are expected to work collaboratively and focus on classroom practice and associated organisational matters. In this respect, the report is aligned with current conservative notions of `"good" teachers as people who competently follow corporate goals and directions, and who focus on the technical job of classroom teaching, ignoring the broader political, industrial and organisational matters that shape their work' (Reid, 1998, p. 64). The JSR also located the learning community as the main site for training and development of middle school teachers. Professional development consists of middle school teachers sharing their `good ideas and practices' (Eyers et al., 1992, p. 155) rather than expanding their subject content knowledge or engaging with broader issues which affect the occupation. Although the report doubted generalist primary teachers' ability to challenge students intellectually, it suggested that teachers working across Years 6-8 would not need `a new education in subject content at the tertiary level' (p.158). If this were to be the case, secondary subject specialists would retain the most powerful positions in the learning community and it is difficult to envisage how a new and distinct middle school culture could develop.

In essence, the JSR argues that by subdividing schools into learning communities and core teaching teams, young adolescents' academic and developmental needs will be met as middle school teachers can spend extended productive time with their students and colleagues. However, teachers are expected to look up to the school leadership for policy direction and career guidance. `Active modelling and support by school leaders is important' (p. 132) in middle schooling but leaders are not considered to be part of the learning community. Although the JSR argued that middle schooling must develop a schooling culture of its own, it reinforced deeply embedded assumptions about gender in its portrayals of primary, secondary and middle school teachers and did not challenge the hierarchical organisation of schools. The following discussion will show that its construction of teachers has been reproduced in subsequent reports on middle schooling.

Soon after the publication of the JSR in South Australia, the Schools Council released the results of its investigation. In the middle: Schooling for young adolescents (Schools Council, 1993, p. iii) attempted to synthesise the advice of `groups who have high levels of expertise' in order to `raise the level of informed debate and to direct attention to this critical phase of schooling' across Australia. Like the JSR, it constructed middle schooling as a distinct phase of education which would fill the culture gap between primary and secondary schooling. Following an introductory chapter, the Schools Council provided contextual information including statistical data. Then the bulk of the report was organised around ten significant issues and concluded with a conceptual framework for further research. In common with the JSR, teachers were not the main focus of this report but much was suggested about their characteristics and work.

The Schools Council had great difficulty finding statistics about teachers' employment in the middle years of schooling, that is from Years 6 to 10, as all systems continue to report in terms of primary- and secondary schools. The report presented data on the ageing teaching work force and constructed it as a deficit with regard to the education of young adolescents. Rather than highlighting the depth of experience which exists among current teachers or the likelihood of many teachers being able to call upon their experience as parents to guide young adolescents, In the middle advocated a `need for retraining and professional development during the next 10 to 15 years, and a significant recruitment from the beginning of the next century' (p. 21). Even so, the perceived problem of the ageing teacher was not revisited in the section entitled `Training, development and leadership' (p. 79).

The only other staffing data cited in this report related to gender: `The major difference between primary and secondary schools is that while teaching is a predominantly female occupation in the former, there is an even balance in the latter ... this balance is not reflected in senior management positions' (p. 21). At this point, however, there was no discussion of the data's implications for middle schooling. In the middle acknowledged gender again in `Training, development and leadership'. Here, Paige Porter's work was quoted in `Pointers--a section of research findings and extracts from the literature': Women in teaching are hardly invisible but: debate on the implications of this would seem to be. It really is time to confront this situation. We do not need some more documentation on the well-known gender order in the teaching profession so much as we need good analysis of the short- and long-term effects of it, and imaginative policies to change it. (cited in Schools Council, 1993, p. 77)

However, this point was not taken up as part of the `Key principles or possibilities in training, development and leadership'. Earlier in the report there was a caveat `that comments and extracts cited should not necessarily be seen as representing the views of the Schools Council' (p. 5). It would seem that, although the Schools Council was prepared to acknowledge the gender order in the occupation, it was not prepared to debate the implications for middle schooling.

As far as teachers were concerned, In the middle cited the JSR as expert evidence about teachers' cultures (pp. 52, 56). The caring and controlling primary teacher was invoked unproblematically, but the report did contain some more positive comments about the group than its predecessor. Primary teachers were portrayed as particularly skilled at identifying at-risk students (p. 45) and catering for their needs as learners (p. 73). The JSR was also called upon as an authoritative document in discussions of secondary teachers. In the middle emphasised the discourse of the secondary teacher who concentrates on subject matter and refuses to accept responsibility for students' learning needs which lie outside the curriculum specialisation (pp. 45, 68, 70). This report also accepted the JSR's argument for a unique middle school culture and encouraged middle school teachers to act `as much as resource persons, coaches, leaders and guides, as experts and authorities by generating a broad range of stimulating and contextualised learning environments' (p. 43). Although In the middle did not adopt the concept of learning communities, preferring instead multidisciplinary teaming, the middle school teacher's daily work is much the same: `Teachers should be co-operating with each other in the planning, delivery and evaluation of programs and activities to help avoid the fragmentation, duplication and overlap that has bedevilled the middle years previously in some schools' (p. 43). Middle school teachers are encouraged to be proactive in forging links with other teachers and undertaking professional development. It is also suggested that `principals could arrange to have teachers and other members of the community participate in programs in pairs, groups and teams involving shared leadership' (p. 79). Although such arrangements have the potential to challenge the tradition that men manage and women teach, this report portrayed principals and other administrators as setting the terms and level of debate about middle schooling. Furthermore it suggested that `strategies for increasing the principal's effectiveness as an educational leader and organisational manager could be developed' (p. 79). Given the Schools Council's earlier acknowledgement of statistics showing that management is in male hands, the implementation of such strategies might reinforce rather than disrupt the gender order of the occupation.

In some respects the final two reports on middle schooling, From alienation to engagement (Cumming & Cormack, 1996) and Shaping middle schooling (Barratt, 1998), contrasted with the JSR and In the middle in their representations of teachers. From alienation to engagement is a three-volume report which was funded by the Department of Education, Employment and Training and managed by the Australian Curriculum Studies Association (hereafter ACSA). Key findings and recommendations were presented in volume one and volumes two and three related to school-based research which was conducted in seventeen schools across three states.

Although From alienation to engagement's focus on student alienation indicated that psychological perspectives would predominate, one of the strengths of this report was its presentation of a range of theories which could inform middle schooling in volume two, and its expectation that middle school teachers engage with both theory and practice in middle schooling in their professional development. This volume set out to `engage teachers in thinking about adolescent alienation, to consider how they use theories to underpin and justify their own practice, and to consider how different constructions of alienation lead to different ways of thinking about schooling and the role of the teacher' (Cumming & Cormack, 1996, vol. 2, p. 1). Indeed, in From alienation to engagement, the middle school teacher's role is expected to extend beyond the technical aspects of classroom practice in important ways. Middle school teachers are not only represented as theoreticians but they are also classroom based researchers in this report. Using an action research model, university based researchers conducted professional development and worked with teams of teachers on classroom or school-based problems or issues. Notwithstanding the intensification of their work, one of the key findings of the project was that middle school teachers found this work empowering. In essence, contemporary middle school teachers are represented as active agents in school-based change in From alienation to engagement. They are intellectuals and their practice is critically informed by theory.

Shaping middle schooling was established as a direct result of From alienation to engagement and to some extent supported its predecessor's positive portrayal of middle school teachers. There were three strands of this project which was funded by the Department of Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs and managed by ACSA. Middle schooling activity across all states and territories was mapped for the first time, and there were extensive consultations with stakeholders which resulted in a common set of principles and strategies for middle schooling in the final report. The third task of the project was to work with teachers to produce curriculum materials `through a model of research which could influence future partnerships work' (Barratt, 1998, p. 9). Building on From alienation to engagement, two Research Circles comprising university academics and teachers in 13 schools across Australia conducted action research to investigate integrated curriculum and authentic assessment. Both projects were informed by principles of social justice, and the benefits of collaborative action research were evident in the section of Shaping middle schooling which discussed the Research Circles. In this report, middle school teachers are theoreticians, researchers and active agents in school reform with the aim of achieving more equitable outcomes in schooling. It could be that portraying teachers as researchers has considerable potential for empowering teachers in future middle schooling reform.

Although From alienation to engagement and Shaping middle schooling contained some important changes in their perspectives of middle school teachers, some of the aforementioned discourses persisted across all reports. Neither of the more recent reports invoked the ageing teaching workforce as an issue in middle schooling but, in volume three of From alienation to engagement, gendered discourses about upper primary and secondary school teachers were registered strongly. Volume three was constructed as a professional development resource for teachers and contained `a series of rich, authentic and insightful views of contemporary school life in upper primary and junior secondary settings' (Cumming & Cormack, 1996, vol. 3, p. 1). The discourses of the caring and controlling upper primary teacher and the self-serving secondary subject specialist are registered time and again in the quotations, accompanying commentary and cartoons in a section on teacher and student perspectives. The gendered nature of these discourses is exposed in the cartoons. `Ms Jones', for example, is unable to challenge her students intellectually (p. 12) whereas `Mr Fisher's ... pedagogical style is increasingly noisy and abrasive' (p. 3) and `Mr Stansbury's teaching is didactic' (p. 60). A particularly confronting cartoon (p. 16) shows a bewildered male secondary teacher gazing at a primary school. He is standing on a bridge between the primary and secondary school. Below him at ground level is an equally confused female primary teacher looking up to the door of the secondary school. Although the readers of this volume were encouraged to think about `alienation, adolescence and middle schooling in new and constructive ways' (p. 1), they were not specifically requested to engage with the ways in which teachers are positioned by the quotations, commentary and cartoons. In effect, the gendered images of primary, secondary and middle school teachers which were canvassed in the JSR and repeated in In the middle continued to be represented unproblematically in volume three of From alienation to engagement.

One of the strengths of the third volume is the extent to which it demonstrated teachers' capacity to initiate reform at the local level. Twelve case studies from a variety of schools were summarised and the implications for further research highlighted. Team teaching featured strongly in the case studies and half of the teams were male/female combinations. Could it be that the `family' with its male and female role models is being reconstituted to some extent in contemporary schools? This ideal seemed to be embedded in the discussion of teaching teams in the JSR and it was also registered in the cartoons which accompany the case studies in From alienation to engagement. It could be coincidence, but the cartoons represented the teaching team as a male/female partnership (Cumming & Cormack, 1996, pp. 25, 45). In the section entitled `Implications for further research and development' (p. 47) the illustrations identified `cultural innovation' with a woman and `sustained support' featured a man being held aloft by several hands. The `productive partnership' was again a male/female combination. `Dynamic leadership' was represented as female. Although this would seem to be a contradiction of the long-standing practice in schools that men manage and women teach, the female in this cartoon was superwoman. This caricature might have captured some of the dilemmas faced by women leaders in contemporary schools (Blackmore, 1998), but it was also a powerful suggestion that leadership does not seem to be the province of ordinary women. Volume three presented the middle school teachers in the case study as active agents in middle schooling reform but it also contained some deeply embedded assumptions about the gender order of the occupation.

In Shaping middle schooling, the perspective of the teacher as researcher was confined to the discussion of the Research Circles and did not seem to register in a section entitled `Shaping middle schooling: Principles and directions' which `is designed to be used separately from the report as a stimulus for discussions about the future of the middle years' (Barratt, 1998, p. 27). It was claimed that the principles and directions were `developed collaboratively from the series of middle schooling forums and the results of the Research Circles' (p. 27). However, the `distinguishing features' (p. 32) associated with middle school teachers' work were limited to the technical aspects of classroom instruction. They contained no references to the use of theory or classroom-based research nor did they engage with social justice. Furthermore there was a stark contrast between the teachers and school leaders who were characterised as `life-long learners who lead by example' (p. 32). It was also school leaders rather than teachers who were seen to `shift the school focus from subject-centred to student-centred learning' (p. 32) and who perceived middle schooling reform holistically. The divisions between teachers and leaders were not so pronounced in From alienation to engagement. This report advocated that teachers be actively involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of local and national initiatives in professional development, but leaders were allocated the responsibility for negotiating with external agencies for funding and support for school-based research. In essence, both Shaping middle schooling and From alienation to engagement supported the status quo in contemporary schools to some extent and constructed leaders as authoritative in setting the agenda for middle schooling. Notwithstanding the brief appearance of superwoman, these recent reports did not problematise school leadership in terms of gender. Thus it seems that men continue to manage while women teach in these recent reports on middle schooling.

In view of these comments, it is appropriate to reconsider the potential of the teacher as researcher for a positive reconstruction of teachers' work. In the 1990s, classroom-based research conducted by teachers, often in partnership with university academics, burgeoned. Although some of this work grew out of earlier action research into social justice issues (Coffey & Delamont, 2000), Blackmore (1999a, p. ii) argues that school-based research `has focused increasingly on the implementation of official policy initiatives in schools'. In so doing, it has lost its critical edge. This has not been the case in Shaping middle schooling where the Research Circles were explicit about their commitment to social justice and there are indications that at least some of the research reported in From alienation to engagement was similarly informed. Some recent American writing (Beane, 1999a; Lewis & Norton, 2000) about a backlash against middle schooling could be timely reminders about the need to consolidate socially critical research. Conservative standards-based reformers are attacking middle schools for their child-centred pedagogy and lack of academic rigour, and advocating a minimalist curriculum which focuses on basic skills. From another perspective, Beane (1999b) and others (Williamson & Johnston, 1999) are beginning to argue that progressive educators' focus on the developmental needs of young adolescents has obscured consideration of the social differences of gender, class, race and ethnicity which are at least of equal importance in the education of these students. Socially critical research is definitely needed to critique both the conservative and progressive agendas.

In advocating socially critical classroom-based research with its explicit political focus, it also necessary to keep in mind which teachers--men and women--and which schools--primary, secondary and middle--are participating in research projects on middle schooling reform. Although primary school teachers are actively involved with university partners in school-based research (Nixon, 1999) especially in relation to educational disadvantage, anecdotal evidence suggests that middle schooling research is more likely to be conducted at secondary and middle school campuses rather than in primary schools. Although women teachers as researchers were well represented in From alienation to engagement and Shaping middle schooling, very few primary schools were chosen for the research. Given the gendered assumptions which have underpinned portrayals of upper primary teachers in the aforementioned reports, it would be very easy to discount their potential to be involved in socially critical research. If the positive potential of teachers as researchers is to be realised, then primary, secondary and middle, men and women teachers must be involved. Furthermore the research should be focusing on teachers and school leaders and the ways they are positioned in middle schooling as well as the important issues pertaining to students, curriculum, pedagogy and school organisation.

The potential for teachers as researchers to be actively involved in the broader educational research community is also beginning to be realised. Flack and Ostler (1999) recently commented: The nature and value of research and the subsequent communication of its outcomes as a means of enhancing the profession has seldom been the domain of the classroom practitioner, rather it has been left for academics to generate, capture and communicate new ideas and understandings for teachers to consider. (p. 89)

The action research which was published in From alienation to engagement and Shaping middle schooling enhances the knowledge and understandings of the participants and equally importantly informs a wider audience of teachers. However, the benefits will be enhanced by measuring at least some of the research conducted by teachers and their university partners against the standard benchmarks for `quality knowledge production' (Seddon, 1999, p. 13), thereby legitimating experiential or non-scientific types of knowledge (Gitlin, 1996; Yeatman, 1996). The dissemination of findings within the mainstream research community will mean that teachers as well as academics become participants in the production of `knowledge and understandings which are useable and useful' (Seddon, 1999, p. 10) and which stand up to external scrutiny. Although there are complex issues involved in these endeavours, the publication of findings within the mainstream research community incorporates teachers, the majority of whom are women, as knowledge producers who are committed to knowledge as a public good, and contributes to the validation of the classroom as a site for educational research.

Notwithstanding these benefits, it is still necessary to consider whether the teacher as researcher discourse unwittingly maps onto gendered assumptions about teaching, women, and their relation to men and the educational community. In particular, does delimiting teachers' research to the school level and classroom practice tacitly endorse teaching as a private activity--women's work--while leaving administration, policy formation and the generation of `scientific types of knowledge' (Yeatman, 1996, p. 288) firmly in men's hands? Yeatman (1996) and Gitlin (1996) have pointed out that research into policy issues and the scientific understanding of educational problems has not only traditionally been men's work but has also been privileged over experiential forms of knowledge. In From alienation to engagement and Shaping middle schooling, there was no suggestion that teachers be involved in research which pertains to broad policy in the middle years of schooling. From alienation to engagement proposed that the researchers into more holistic approaches to reform would be `universities, professional associations, education systems and other agencies' (Cumming & Cormack, 1996, vol. 1, p. 10). In view of evidence that current efforts to restructure schools and centralise educational administration have exacerbated the gendered division of labour (Blackmore, 1998, 1999b; Reid, 1998; Smyth, Dow, Hattam, Reid, & Shacklock, 2000), the question of who the policy makers and researchers are likely to be is an important one. It is also the case that the restructuring process has elevated the status of principals and other administrators and been accompanied by much closer supervision of teachers. Although there have been many positive outcomes of engaging teachers in school-based research, they have not gained the trust of the dominant groups--administrators and policy makers--the majority of whom are men. It is still the case that dominant groups emphasise scientific types of knowledge and `fact gathering that is more systematic, controlled, experimental and quantitative' (Gitlin, 1996, p. 599). It does not seem to be the case that action research is informing broad policy making in middle schooling or education generally. Although the promotion of classroom-based research `does attempt to reinvent the relation between teachers and teacher educators and provides a larger role for experience as a form of legitimate knowledge ... it is unlikely to satisfy dominant groups and their doubts about the gendered nature of teaching' (Gitlin, 1996, p. 619).

If the gender order of the occupation is to be challenged by promoting teachers as researchers, then they must be active participants in all types of research which contribute to knowledge and understanding of middle schooling. Primary, secondary and middle school teachers, men and women, need encouragement and real opportunities to use a variety of research methods (Coffey & Delamont, 2000) and to investigate all manner of issues besides those which arise from classroom practice. These include the historical, political and industrial issues that shape their work. Some years ago, Smyth (1986) wrote that `teachers are never urged to look beyond the classroom, to search for similarities and differences between themselves and others, either within the structure of schools or of other institutions of society' (p. 95). It still seems to be the case that teachers' research is grounded almost exclusively in classroom experience. Given that socially critical research entails finding the wider historical, social and cultural explanations for educational problems, teachers must be able to access, engage with and contribute to the construction of the bodies of knowledge which inform this research. Here the role of university academics as knowledge producers and disseminators is very important. Connell (1998, p. 96) argues that there is an `ethical obligation' and pressing `social need' for academics to exercise their capacity for public critique during these conservative political times. We need to ensure that both university academics and teachers are able to access and produce knowledge and understandings which inform socially critical research. With the current pressures on universities to narrow their research focuses and move into fee-paying professional development and postgraduate education, it will take both courage and creativity to negotiate such an agenda. Nevertheless, so long as men and women, primary, secondary and middle school teachers as researchers are participating in all aspects of the mainstream educational research community, the potential for disrupting the maxim that men manage and women teach is more likely to be realised.

Finally, whatever the type of research being undertaken by teachers, their material work conditions and benefits must be dealt with if they are to participate fully in these projects. Problems of diminishing resources and increasing class sizes, casualisation and lack of career opportunities, to name but a few, have impacted on teachers' work in recent times. The intensification of teachers' work was also an insistent sub-theme in discussions about teachers as researchers in Shaping middle schooling and From alienation to engagement and is ever present in the literature about school-based research. This is both a practical and political issue and as Gitlin (1996) and others (Burrow & Martin, 1998; Reid, 1998; Smyth et al., 2000) argue, it is time to reinvigorate the political orientation to professionalisation which was part and parcel of teaching in the late 19th and early 20th century. Coffey and Delamont (2000) and Smyth and his colleagues (Smyth et al., 2000) have recently suggested a slew of ways in which teachers, unions and university academics might pursue such an agenda. Yet portraying teachers, especially women, as political actors in middle schooling seems inimical to the images of teachers which have been promulgated in the aforementioned reports. Perhaps it is also time to heed the long tradition of political involvement by women teachers (Deverall, 1999; Prentice & Theobald, 1991; Whitehead, 1996) as well as men, in trying to challenge the gendered division of labour and influence the nature and conditions of their work as professionals in periods of economic and political conservatism. The capacity of contemporary teachers to achieve similar reforms even in these hard times should not be underestimated.

Conclusion

So do men still manage while women teach? This seems to be the case in the four reports on middle schooling which have been the focus of this article. Although teachers are not the central issue in any of the reports, the current cohort of primary, secondary and middle school teachers are represented in ways which confirm old assumptions of men's and women's capacities, and uphold the hierarchical organisation of schools. Advocates for middle schooling reform do not tackle the gendered division of labour in the occupation or consider its implications for contemporary schools, teachers and students. Nevertheless the more recent reports, From alienation to engagement and Shaping middle schooling, contain the seeds of more empowering discourses about middle school teachers and clearly demonstrate their capacity to participate in research-based reform at the local level. At the very least, however, disrupting the gendered division of labour requires courage and a political orientation to teachers' work. Concomitant with this change is an imperative to support the full range of teachers to embrace all forms of socially critical research within and outside the classroom so that they are incorporated as knowledge producers within the broader educational research community.

Keywords

action research middle schools primary school teachers secondary school teachers teacher administrator relationship women teachers

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Author

Kay Whitehead is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia 5042.