Constructing Teachers: An Investigation into the application of primary school leaders' and education policy constructions of teachers and teaching

Successive UK governments insist a 'crisis' exists within England's education system and policy interventions associated with the School Effectiveness and Improvement agenda construct school leadership as the solution to this 'crisis', positioning the Head Teacher as the school 'leader' and teachers as 'followers'. School leaders adopt a corporate habitus to achieve policy targets,

requiring teachers to play the game or be disposed of (Courtney and Gunter 2015). This modernisation agenda seeks to maintain unequal power relations within the field, changing teacher identities, pedagogy and practices and the relationship between school leaders and teachers, raising profound questions about school leadership, teachers and, by extension, the

purpose of education, which my research seeks to address.