Primary Teachers, Inspection and the Silencing of the Ethic of Care

James Reid is a Senior Lecturer in Childhood Studies at the University ofHuddersfield, UK. Prior to beginning his academic career at Teesside Universityteaching social work, James was a social work manager and then a staffdevelopment officer at a local authority. He has published extensively on localauthorities and the safeguarding of children and topics related to childhoodand education. This includes an interest in professionalism and how work withchildren and young people is shaped by policy. He was awarded the OutstandingPaper award in the 2017 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence. He isthe co-editor of Perspectives on and from Institutional Ethnography (Emerald Publishing, 2017).

The author uses the example of a primary school in England during an inspection to understand teachers' experiences of the inspection process and the "notice to improve," how inspectors' reports of a specific school reflect wider national and global policy, and the dilemmas teachers identify when working within a performative framework. He explores how care involves relationships and political aspects and how teachers practices of care are coordinated and mediated through institutional relations that involve policies, guidance, and wider regulatory texts used within a performative agenda for schools. He focuses on teachers' experiences and understanding of care during this period of requiring improvement and discusses the concept of care and how it is understood within a political ethic, the ideological and political abstractions within wider children and families' policy that mediates and directs teachers' work through regulatory texts, the role of personal and professional moral boundaries in terms of teaching as a caring practice that focuses on educating the whole child and caring for the requirements of government and its regulatory agents, conflicts arising in teachers' talk and the organization of practices of care through inspectors’ reports, and teachers’ experience and understanding of care.

• Chapter 1: Developing Understanding of Teachers' EverydayWork During a Period of Inspection Chapter 2: The Story Being Told Chapter 3: Care is Political: Situatingthe 'Ethic of Care' in a Conceptual Framework Chapter 4: Politics First: IdeologicalAbstraction, Assessing Pupils' Progress and Blame Chapter 5: Personal and ProfessionalMoral Boundaries, Asymmetry and Categorisation Chapter 6: Silencing Care: AchievingFidelity to Regulatory Demands Chapter 7: Teachers' Experience andUnderstanding of Care