Discourses of Quality in Australian Teacher Education: Critical Policy Analysis of a Government Inquiry into the Status of the Profession

Teacher quality has emerged as a powerful construct over the last 20 years at a global level. In Australia, it is a major discursive term in government-initiated inquiries, policy statements and enactment strategies. The quality discourse, driven by standardisation and large-scale testing, acts as a major force re-shaping teacher identity, narrowing teaching practices, and re-forming the teaching profession and professionalism. This technical framing of teaching under the mantra of quality has a significant effect on teacher education—what teachers are expected to learn, how they learn, and how they demonstrate achievement of learning. Governance of education through the mantra of quality restricts teacher education at the same time as teacher educators’ perspectives are marginalised. Critical analyses are needed to map workings of the term in the policy landscape. This chapter, framed within the research field of critical policy studies, identifies the distinctive contribution of teacher educators in the most recent Australian inquiry into the teaching profession and challenges the regimes of truth that constrain teacher education at both local and global levels.