Collegiality in Context of Institutional Logics: A Conceptual Review

Point of departure, purpose, and research questions

Teachers’ work is here regarded as socially and politically constructed (Goodson, 2003, p. 52). Teachers work in specific social, cultural, and organizational settings, and these pre-conditions limit what is possible to see and act upon (Freidson, 2001). Put with Hodkinson, Biesta, and James’ (2007, p. 418) words, “people are subject to structures even as they take agentic actions.” In accordance with, for instance, Bernstein (1996/2000, p. 3) and Lundgren (1984, p. 10), it is of importance to understand educational societal contexts. Here, referring to the notion of language games (Wittgenstein, 1953/1978), I study utterances or conceptions, arguing that they take on their meanings in different contexts understood as different structuring factors that are analysed through institutional logics (Freidson, 2001).

Since collegiality is a term used in different social worlds, I regard it as a boundary object.

Boundary objects can be used to understand the relation between science and society and how scientific cooperation between different groups is possible (Wisselgren, 2008, p. 104). They can also explain the possibility of “building bridges” between different social worlds, here seen as research, policy and teachers’ work, each of them wanting to contribute to school success from their perspective.

Previous research

According to Svensson (2011, p. 304, my translation), the term colleague means “a person you work with,” and collegiality in general means “unity, solidarity.” Thus, rather broad definitions. However, in both research and individual-site use, it assumes different positions. A few examples follow to illustrate this from the 1970s to the present.

In Lortie’s Schoolteacher (1975/2002, p. 70)—this text’s “ground zero” and seminal (but also heavily criticized) modern study on teachers’ work —teacher collegiality was connected to a lack of technical culture, and teachers were seen as professionally isolated. Thus, collegiality here entailed that a good colleague left his or her colleagues alone, as suggested by Little and McLaughlin (1993, p. 3).

From this notion of “individual collegiality,” most researchers seem to consider collegiality as more “cooperative,” consisting of communication and interaction (Mausethagen, 2013, p. 17) as a structure or as action and practice (Bennett, Woods, Wise, & Newton, 2007). Collegiality can also be regarded as highly contextualized and normative, a result of pursuing the “right” collaborative activities in a workplace (Kelchtermans 2006, p. 221). In general, collegiality includes a positive value (Clement & Vandenberghe, 2000, p. 81); however, see also Clement and Vandenberghe (2000), Little (1990) or Kelchtermans (2006) for a critical discussion. However, following Hargreaves (1994), Vangrieken, Dochy, Raes, and Kyndt (2015) highlight a problem with a loss of individual autonomy and independence replaced by increased contrived collegiality.

Research on teachers’ professional workhas been performed with a variety of different frameworks, giving the field a “lack of internal consistency and stability” (Lindblad, 2009, p. 212). Early sociological research on professions used to treat differences among occupational groups (e.g., Broman, 1995; Gieryn, 1983; Foss Lindblad & Lindblad, 2009) or, for example, professions’ functions in society (Parsons, 1939). This research did not include teachers as teaching was categorized as a semi-profession (Etzioni, 1969). Such early sociological research on professions was followed by a period of critique of professions and professional projects (Svensson & Evetts, 2010, p. 8). For instance, according to Foss Lindblad and Lindblad (2009, p. 7), the altruistic traits of professions were heavily questioned, and it was argued, on the contrary, that professions are characterized by self-interest. Later research on professionalism can be seen as a movement “toward models of professional organizations and knowledge claim” (Leicht & Fennell, 2008, p. 432). In these movements, the work of teachers is also included. Professionalism is discussed as a disciplinary mechanism (Fournier, 1999) or as a way of steering and organizing work (Evetts, 2009; Freidson, 2001). With a new kind of governance based on NPM, Evetts (2009) presents two distinct forms of professionalism: occupational professionalism, in which the occupation sets the rules and collegial authority is incorporated, and organizational professionalism, in which the “discourse of control, used increasingly by managers in work organizations” is dominant (Evetts, 2009, p. 248). Evetts (2009, p. 252) argues that as a rule, “NPM is working more to promote organizational professionalism and to further undermine occupational professionalism.” In this text, I will use “professionalism” in accordance with Freidson (2001) and Evetts (2009).

Governance of teachers’ work has changed from a focus on bureaucracy to more market-like principals in what can be called educational restructuring, a global movement, similar in many Western countries (Ball, 2008; Wiborg, 2013). In the Nordic countries restructuring in education has been similar; curriculum reforms combined with some kind of goal or outcome steering were carried out during the 1990s although with some national differences (Carlgren & Klette, 2008). Antikainen (2006) argues “equity, participation, and the welfare state have been known as the major socio-political attributions of the Nordic model” (Antikainen, 2006, p. 230). In various degrees, these ideals are now competing with market ideals or rather quasi-markets (as used by, for example, Lundahl, 2002), although the countries still maintain “a universal welfare state regime and a comprehensive education system” (Wiborg, 2013, p. 407). Many of these changes have been regarded as “inevitable” in order to make the respective systems better (Johannesson, Lindblad, & Simola, 2002). Nilsson Lindström and Beach (2015) argue that this decentralization and marketization bring about “significant changes in relation to education policy and the management and organization of teachers’ work” (Nilsson Lindström & Beach, 2015, p. 241).

In this shift of governance, teachers’ work is of interest not only to national policymakers—many actors want to contribute to improving education. One example is the OECD and their International Summit on the Teaching Profession. On their website, the summit’s high impact on teacher policy is highlighted (International Summit on the Teaching Profession, 2016).

The main issue emerging from this outline—when vague concepts are used in combination with new and even contrasting governance including many actors—is how concepts are used or rather assigned meaning in different contexts and how teachers’ professional work can be understood in relation to this.

Conceptual framework

To study the structuring principles for teacher collegiality, Freidson’s (2001) three ideal types of institutional logics—market, bureaucracy, and professionalism—will be used. Research on institutional logics is used in many different ways (e.g., Blomgren & Waks, 2015; Freidson, 2001; Thornton, Ocasio & Lounsbury, 2012; Scott, 2000). In this study, it is regarded a way of governing and organizing work, framing teachers’ ways of acting and points of reference (Thornton et al., 2012) and it provides a fixed model to compare and use as an analytic tool. The different logics are characterized by different sets of assumptions.

The logic of the market assumes that there are sellers and buyers who know the value of the goods on the market. For the “customers” to make well-informed choices, much information is required and provided. The idea is that in this way competitive prices and acceptable quality will follow (Freidson, 2001; Blomgren & Waks, 2015; Samuelsson & Lindblad, 2015).

In the logic of bureaucracy, the idea is that through transparency, stability, hierarchical structures, rules, and formal procedures a high degree of standardization will follow. This is often seen in the public sector (Freidson, 2001; Blomgren & Waks, 2015; Samuelsson & Lindblad, 2015), and is often legitimized as measures to implement parliamentary decisions.

Finally, in the logic of professionalism, the idea is that professional actors themselves rule their work with a high degree of autonomy. This is rooted in their long education and training, and their competence and experience are the basis for decisions (Freidson, 2001; Blomgren & Waks, 2015; Samuelsson & Lindblad, 2015).

The point of departure is that different structuring factors are based on different institutional logics—including material and symbolical parts, concrete structures as well as ideas (Blomgren & Waks, 2015)—and that these strategies, in turn, have implications for collegiality in teachers’ work.

Methods

A conceptual analysis of collegiality in educational research will generate insight into the field’s arguments that are of importance in understanding teachers’ professional lives. My approach is interpretative and deals with conceptual contributions in research publications, inspired by Lindblad, Pettersson, and Popkewitz (2015). Aligning with Gough, Oliver, and Thomas (2013), it is concerned with “a small number of detailed cases to develop an understanding of processes and mechanisms and meanings” (Gough, Oliver, & Thomas, 2013, p. 20).

I aimed for seminal research texts in the educational research literature in a systematic and transparent search. Different search engines proved to yield different results, so instead, I chose an alternative way, through well-recognized journals and within them the most cited articles according to a strict schedule. To find important academic journals in education, I used SCImago journal and country rank provided by Scopus. The schedule limited the journal search by focus: teachers’ work and education in general (see Appendix A1). After that, the first ten journals, based on their SCImago Journal Rank indicator (a measure of a journal’s impact, influence or prestige) were chosen, which turned out to be mainly with Anglo-Saxon origins (see Appendix A2).

In the next step, the most cited articles within the journals were found through the search terms teacher AND collegiality AND professionalism. Since Lortie (1975/2002) is seen here as a “ground zero” for collegiality, the first articles used were published after Schoolteacher in the 1980s, and the most recent articles used were published in 2016 (see Appendix A3).

All the articles found were thereafter sorted by respective decade 1980−2016 and ranked by the number of citations in Scopus.

Since this search was a bit “unorthodox,” there was a reason to question it. Hence, a parallel search with the same search terms was performed in Google Scholar. Based on this parallel search, the conclusion was that the original search with well-recognized journals and frequently cited articles worked well. Similar articles appeared in Google Scholar although a more active job in evaluating the texts was required on my part due to a higher mixture. Even so, this controlled search has important limitations; no books are included, seminal texts might be excluded, and it also may be contributing to the much-disputed focus on citation impacts. There is also a risk that the discussed research arguments found in the literature search are not the most significant ones. All this is acknowledged. However, there is also gain in finding interesting literature in a transparent way that is rigorously controlled, since it renders the search unbiased and easily replicated.

Results

As a result of this search, a total of 185 articles were found between 1980 and 2016. Within each journal, the number of articles varied between 3 and 68. The mean for all the journals was five articles per year. The chronological distribution is presented in Figure 1 and shows that the number of published articles was low in the 1980s but increased in the 1990s.

After an increase also in the early 2000s, the interest in teacher collegiality has remained relatively stable in these journals. The two most frequently cited articles within each year span used in this analysis are presented in Table 1.

These selected articles are frequently cited in all more than 2200 times and can be said to be widely disseminated. Each time span is represented by two journals (which was a result of the strict schedule). After this search, “Nordic” or “Scandinavian” was added in order to find articles within this geographic setting. In total eight new articles were found, but after scanning, only two remained.¹ These are not as widely cited as the four articles mentioned above, neither are they as widely distributed in time as those above, they are all recent, published in the 2010s. However, they were published in highly recognized academic journals and add to the picture of the landscape of collegiality from a Nordic perspective in a transparent search, see Table 1b.

The analysed texts will initially be briefly described and then analysed in the light of institutional logics. This deductive analysis utilized a schedule with the characteristics of the logics presented above. The schedule was divided into two parts: 1) accounting for bibliometric issues and research traditions; and 2) accounting for the empirical findings of the article, in the light of institutional logics. A model of this schedule is found in Appendix B.

Discussion

It has been fruitful to analyse collegiality as a boundary object in the context of different institutional logics in order to find different conceptions or values of collegiality. In the everyday making of schooling and collegiality, these logics overlap, and competing forms of collegiality appear, but departing from the above analyses, here they are translated into ideal types: market collegiality, bureaucratic collegiality, and professional collegiality with a focus on how collegial relations appear within the respective logics, centering on who introduces collegial ideas and on the nature of such ideas. This is of importance in relation to the understanding of collegiality as a boundary object appearing in different social and cultural worlds.

In market collegiality, collegial relations are imposed from the outside of schools—from the market, “customer” and managerial requirements for monitoring and information. A great deal of information is needed and produced for the “outside” to absorb. The outside is here regarded as the media, parents, and students—the recipients of education. This imposed collegiality becomes an instrument for information and suggests that teachers’ work is strictly instrumental, providing important information and ‘products’ for the market. With the “right” tools teachers are expected to do the right thing—an instrumental view of teaching might arise.

In bureaucratic collegiality, collegial relations are regulated “from above,” that is, through formal procedures and/or official steering documents, for the school’s best. These formal procedures may be supporting, but they may also be constraining—cutting leeway for improvisation and possibly hindering collegial relations to develop, and collegiality risks becoming a burden. This imposed collegiality becomes an instrument and supplies the prerequisites for a standardization of the teacher’s job, which provides clear structures, but reduces flexibility. This too can be seen as instrumental teaching.

Finally, collegial relations in the ideal type of professional collegiality are based on professional judgements (based on teachers’ professional knowledge and ethics) concerning what is considered to be for the best of the participants and the school. This demands a lot of the teachers’ involved. Some teachers might want to avoid it, or some teachers are avoided. Yet, when it works, continuous on-the-job learning ensues. This collegiality is not imposed, but emerges from within the group and becomes a tool for professional development. This kind of collegiality originates from within the organization, and provides leeway and scope for development.

These different ideal types of collegiality are regarded as a supplement to Evetts (2009, p. 248) since they can contribute to and deepen the understanding of organizational and occupational professionalism—in terms of organizational and occupational collegiality. The ideal type of professional collegiality resembles occupational collegiality, whereas the other two resemble organizational collegiality. Table 2 illustrates this.

Here the analysis is based on the fact that the constructed ideal types of collegiality are dependent on and appear in relation to each other. All ideal types of collegiality have something to contribute to teachers’ professional work life; however, they suggest different things and affect teachers’ working conditions in different ways. Bureaucratic collegiality suggests standardization, market collegiality provides transparency, and professional collegiality suggests professional development; thus, the different kinds of collegiality relate to teachers’ work in different ways. This might influence teachers’ work life, but on the other hand, Lasky (2005, p. 912), for one, argues that

Even so, since collegiality is a weakly structured concept, it is of importance to analyze its mix of ingredients and to recognize that there are different meanings and that certain connotations and expectations follow from each meaning in context, referring to Wittgenstein’s (1953/1978) notion of language-games.

Concluding remarks

In this paper I have argued that collegiality as a boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989) is understood differently in the context of different institutional logics (Freidson, 2001). When collegiality is discussed, this is done from a certain context with its set of values. Here I have shown how these values can be manifested in different institutional logics present in teachers’ work. The main finding is that the diverse, often concealed, meanings assigned to collegiality—here made into ideal types—matter for teachers’ daily work and working conditions. The ideal types of collegiality range from imposed collegial relations to collegial relations appearing from the teachers themselves. It also ranges from collaboration as a tool for professional development to collaboration as a tool for administration or information. How can teachers in institutional crowdedness embrace collegiality when its values and expectations are not contextualized? How do expectations correlate with the context teachers’ work is embedded in? Since it seems hard to succeed with ill-defined tasks, it is important to clarify what value of collegiality is intended before campaigning, arguing, or implementing it—as for now, teachers themselves have to translate this meaning in their daily work.

This study used a rather unusual, but strictly controlled way of finding literature. Using the most cited articles in widely recognized journals, texts were found that can be said to be influential. This way of finding literature yields a certain kind of outcome. To find out what texts were excluded, a simple parallel search was performed, which confirmed that this method was an acceptable way in terms of hits. In addition, it was a transparent way of finding articles spread in time and space. I thus see this systematic and transparent search method as an additional result of this study.

Out of the 185 found articles in this transparent search, ten articles were chosen to form the foundation for this analysis. As this present article does not claim to present a picture of the general landscape of collegiality, but rather an example of how collegiality as a boundary object is situated and assigned meanings in different institutional logics, I argue that this is in order. This is an analysis of influential research texts, found in accordance with my goal of transparency. The participating articles can be regarded as “travelling texts” that change meaning in different contexts. These texts are used for my examples, and this reading is mine, through the lens of institutional logics (Freidson, 2001). The fact that another lens would generate new and other insights does not diminish the contribution of this article.

The different ingredients of collegiality require various quality checks that to some extent have to do with trust in teachers (Evetts, 2006). Who is entitled to find mistakes, and how is trust in teachers’ collegial work acknowledged? When collegiality is imposed from the outside as in a market and bureaucratic collegiality, the control also comes from the outside whereas in more professional collegiality this control comes from within, from professional judgments. These different quality checks are probably related to the trust shown in teachers’ collegial work, but further analyses are needed, as is consideration of the mix of the characteristics in a certain setting or how teachers in various settings respond to these structuring principles.

The text departed from the fact that the governance of teachers’ work has shifted towards a focus on NPM and an influence on policy from new actors seen as politics of expertise (Lindblad & Lundahl, 2015). The analysis confirmed that the expectations and assumptions of collegiality were assigned different meanings in different settings ranging from “collegiality for the sake of information for the market” to “collegiality for development for the sake of the occupation” and as such has contributed to research on new description of governance of teachers’ work through defining values of collegiality in different contexts. Since the ensuing assumptions and following expectations are then very different, this article has argued that it is of vital importance to be aware of such differences and to clarify what kind of collegiality is meant, for instance when demanding more or less of it. The ideal types of collegiality presented in this article all have something to contribute to the understanding of teaching, but they imply different preconditions and frameworks. Such differences need to be clarified in order to improve exchanges of ideas, cooperation, and understanding of collegiality as a boundary object with different implications. It affects teachers’ working conditions in their daily work. To recognize and to deal with different meanings of collegiality is important for research, teachers, and teacher educators as well as for policy-makers and planners. Given this collegial clarity, actors in different cultural and social worlds will hopefully have a better chance to exchange ideas, cooperate, and actually understand each other—collegial missions we all could benefit from.