Discussion
The cases we constructed for Anna and Niki help us to problematise typologies or categorisations of professionalism as, for instance, managerial vs. democratic (Day & Sachs, 2004), or extended vs. restricted (Evans, 2008), by showing how porous the ‘boundaries’ between these categorisations are. They are further helpful for challenging the ‘spatial’ border implied in these categorisations between ‘the classroom’, ‘the school’, ‘the community’, ‘the social’ contexts, since, as we have exemplified in the cases of both Anna and Niki, each of these contexts is nested in and open to each other. The two teachers’ decisions in the classroom are shaped by how they have been perceived and recognised in their (past and present) schools, how they repeatedly re-enacted such recognisable ‘identities’ (see, e.g. Niki’s constitution as a good first grade teacher as well as her reiteration of the ‘teacher of the school’ rather than ‘of a classroom’) and the ‘role’ or ‘mission’ of school in the broader social context. Their enactment of professionalism as professionality is shaped by their own professional biographies and beliefs (e.g. school contexts, past experiences and training), but it is also shaped by and simultaneously shapes broader historical and historicised notions of professionalism as these have emerged in the context of Cyprus. The historical conceptualisation of the teacher as a public servant in Cyprus relates to Anna’s reported mission of the school to ameliorate for the social and emotional/psychological needs of pupils and families, as a provision of public service perceived as social service. This sets the teaching profession in a particular relation to the state as a profession primarily of social work.
