A systematic literature review by Tore Bernt Sorensen

1. The teaching professions in the context of
globalisation: A systematic literature review
University of Cambridge
February 7th 2018
Tore Bernt Sorensen
Université Catholique de Louvain
tore.sorensen@uclouvain.be

2. The ERC TeachersCareers project - objectives,
hypotheses and questions
The literature review - being systematic and
making a case for the choices involved
Observations, initial results, strands of the
literature

3. ERC TeachersCareers Project
• 5 years project starting from 2017
• Principal Investigator Xavier Dumay, 2 post-docs and 1 PhD (with 2
post-docs and 1 PhD starting from autumn 2018)
• 4 Working Packages (teacher policy, supply, labour markets,
mobility)
• Critical friends – scholars affiliated with the project
• Partners in Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Institut de
Recherche sur l’Education at Université de Bourgogne, Department
of Education at University of Oxford
This project has received funding from the European
Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's
Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
(grant agreement N° 714641)

4. Research objective
The objective of the Teacherscareers project is to analyse
the political construction of global (European) models of
teachers’ careers, and how they have been appropriated in
three distinctive national systems (France, England, French-
speaking Belgium), thereby reconfiguring the labour markets
for teachers (supply, allocation, and mobility).

5. TeacherPolicy
Educational Regimes
Employment
Regimes
Research objective
Teacher
Supply
Teacher
Allocation
Teacher
Mobility
5

6. Teachers as policy problem
• The representation of teachers as a policy problem is not new,
yet since the 2000s
– new intensity in political (and politically framed research)
activities
– the problem has been redefined in being scaled up to the
global level, calling for collaborative (not necessarily
common) solutions
• Effective (motivated, skilled, innovative) teachers are central
for realizing goals of productivity, equity and adequacy.
However, around the world issues of low attractiveness and
retention rates of teaching professions (leading to shortages
in supply), and fragmented and segregated labour markets
present significant challenges.

7. Hypotheses
• Teacher policies in Europe are increasingly anchored in
the global education policy field and influenced by a
performative view of educational systems (flexibilisation
of employment relations + the learning shift in
education).
• Transnational teacher policies models/instruments are
hybridized by the twin national employment and
educational modes of regulation, reconfiguring labour
markets for teachers (supply, allocation, and mobility).

8. Working Package on teacher policy
• In which ways have teachers’ careers been subject to political
processes and governance mechanisms internationally?
• Can we observe normative models of ‘good’ teachers and their
careers internationally? How have they evolved over time in terms
of their semantic universes (flexibilisation + learning shift)?
• To which extent are the national trajectories of teacher policies
linked to global governance structures and their normative models,
and are they related in the same way - through identical
mechanisms?
• How to characterise the evolution of teacher policies in each
national context? Which models of teachers’ careers and labour
markets for teachers?

9. Literature review
on teachers and teaching
in the context of globalisation

10. Guiding question for the review
• How has the ‘teacher problem’ since the 1990s been
represented in the Anglophone peer-reviewed academic
literature on the teaching professions in the context of
globalisation and Europeanisation?
(the review should help us formulating hypotheses about
mechanisms, or institutional logics, at work at the global or
transnational scale, and how these mechanisms interact with
other mechanisms or conditions present at other scales)

11. Defining review, defining literature
“Although the literature review is a widely recognized genre of scholarly
writing, there is no clear understanding of what constitutes a body of
literature. Each reviewer must decide which specific studies to include or
exclude from a review and why. And each such decision alters the character of
the set as a whole and could also therefore alter the net conclusions drawn
from the set.”
“… even systematic reviews require nontrivial judgments as researchers try to
define the boundaries of their research questions and their standards for
acceptable literature. Often, when readers approach a systematic review, they
may be unaware that microlevel decisions have influenced the composition of
the literature as a whole.“ (pp.139-140, emphasis added)
Kennedy, M. (2007). Defining a literature. Educational Researcher, 36(3), 139–147

12. Review
Organizing and prioritizing the most relevant information in a larger pool of
information.
Many sorts of literature reviews, with various purposes in terms of theoretical
development and/or policy purposes.
Systematic literature reviews for policy design:
Evidence-based policy, effective application of best public policy practices
 Aggregative reviews focused on effectiveness of interventions (e.g. meta-analysis
through statistical pooling of primary research studies)
Systematic literature reviews for theory-building and hypothesis testing:
Mapping, discussing, and perhaps bringing together different strands of the relevant
literature, to identify and challenge established paradigms and schools of thought
 Configurative reviews (Gough, Oliver, and Thomas, 2013)
 Conceptual (integrative, theoretical, methodological, and historical) reviews
(Kennedy, 2007)

13. Being systematic
Aggregative reviews,
ideally exhaustive to
avoid bias in the
reporting of findings
Configurative reviews,
mapping and discussing
patterns in the literature
and findings

14. Review as configuration
• The very topic of teachers and teaching in the context of
globalisation calls for a configurative review
o identifying themes and major schools of thought and their
variations, as well as minority views and dissent
o the limitations of the exclusive scope on English language
contributions should be understood with this objective in mind

15. Review stages
1. Need – who is doing the review and what are the findings used for?
2. Review question and underlying assumptions
3. Scope and inclusion criteria
4. The design of a search strategy
5. Screening to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant studies
6. Coding to collect information and findings as a basis for mapping the field
7. Mapping by describing the nature of the research field defined by the
inclusion criteria
8. Appraise by judging the relevance, quality and contributions of the studies
9. Synthesise by bringing together the findings to address the research
questions
10. Communicate by presenting the review, including methodology, findings and
synthesis
Gough, Oliver, and Thomas (2013). Learning from research: Systematic reviews for
informing policy decisions—A quick guide. London: Nesta.
Petticrew and Roberts (2006). Systematic reviews in the social sciences: A practical
guide. Blackwell.

16. Scope and inclusion criteria
4 cross-cutting dimensions:
• The social dimension: teachers as a diverse yet distinctive social group,
working in primary and (lower and upper) secondary education (ISCED
levels 1, 2 and 3).
• The work dimension: the work and practices going on inside schools as
well as the labour markets and career pathways of teachers.
• The political dimension: governance and political processes concerned
with the control, regulation or management of teachers as the main
labour force in education
• The scalar dimension: the intensification of political processes across sub-
national, national and international scales. These pluri-scalar governance
activities involve heterarchical networks as well as hierarchies, informal
discussions as well as formal negotiations structured according to political
mandates.
The 4 dimensions are central for the design of search strategies, screening,
and coding of the relevant literature.

17. What to include?
• Literature which is explicitly addressing internationalising,
globalising or regionalising processes and teachers
 EXCLUDING literature which does not theorise or address those
globalising processes but that appears to be influential in
promoting globalising processes of teacher policy (often cited in
publications by the OECD, the European institutions, etc.)
• Priority given to articles in academic journals and book
contributions issued by publishing houses.
 We apply a strict concept of peer-reviewed literature,
EXCLUDING publications from organisations affiliated with state
authorities and intergovernmental organisations, conference
papers, working papers, commissioned papers written by
university-based scholars, reports from consultancies,
foundations and think tanks, news reports, and websites (all
regarded as grey literature).

18. Search strategy
Hand-search
Identifying key
contributions
Compiling lists of
bibliographies
Electronic data searches
Selecting databases
Defining and applying
search strings
Compiling lists of
references
Initial selection of literature
for relevance screening
Final pool of literature – to be coded

19. Hand search – key contributions
3 book chapters in edited volumes
2 monographs (Robertson, 2000; Darling-Hammonds et al, 2017)
3 special issues of peer-reviewed journals
International Journal of Educational Research (2006)
Comparative Education Review (2012)
Educational Researcher (2017)
Edited volumes
Reforming Teaching Globally (2007)
Routledge World Yearbook of Education 2013
Promoting and Sustaining a Quality Teacher Workforce (2015)
International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy (2018)

20. Hand search – 4 review-like key contributions
Contribution Total ref Cross-
ref
Ref to other
key
contributions
Grey
literature
Non-
English
References
included in
pool for
screening
Nóvoa (2000) in
Swing et al. 2000
72 3 0 5 28 36
Tatto (2008) in
Prospects
109 13 3 20 1 80
Paine et al. (2016)
in Gitomer and
Bell (ed)
371 34 6 79 16 236
Akiba (2017) in
Educational
Researcher
202 32 19 27 0 127
Total 754 82 28 131 45 479

21. Databases
2 major databases to complement the hand-search and
challenge our preconceptions:
1. Scopus – maintained by Elsevier
2. Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) – maintained
by Institute of Education Sciences. IES is the statistics, research,
and evaluation arm of the US Department of Education.
 different results and few cross-references between Scopus
and ERIC searches – and to hand-search
 Selection policy: journals vs. books and chapters (publisher-
based)

22. Composing the search string
Social dimension teacher OR teaching profession
AND
Work dimension labour OR career OR work OR retention OR supply OR allocation
OR demand OR practice
AND
Political dimension policy OR reform OR governance OR law OR control OR
management OR managing OR regulation
AND
Scalar dimension international OR global OR globalisation OR supranational OR
european OR transnational OR regionalisation OR comparative

23. Tuning search strings
• Finding a balance between search sensitivity and
specificity (and manageability)
• Search parameters
o Title, abstract and keywords/descriptors
Using certain descriptors in ERIC yields more
results than using the same keywords in Scopus

24. Pool for screening
Source References
Key contributions 107
4 review-like contributions 479
Scopus 134
ERIC 270
Total 990

25. Screening criteria
• Screening not for quality, but for relevance
• 4 dimensions - again:
o The social dimension – focusing on teachers
o The work dimension: practices, labour markets, career
pathways of teachers (including initial education and
training)
o The political dimension: governance and political
formation
o The scalar dimension: global, transnational, international,
regional contexts (also contextualised case studies), policy
borrowing and lending

26. References post-screening
Initial pool Selected % relevant
Key contributions 107 (70) (65%)
4 review-like
contributions
479 (9 +21+70=30= 130) (27%)
Scopus 134 50 37%
ERIC 270 51 19%
In total 990 (301) (30%)

27. General observations
• Our preconceptions have been challenged (teacher migration
abroad)… and confirmed (geographical bias and main strands)
• Strong focus on Europe (Finland), the US (and Canada), Australia,
and East and South-East Asia (but also references on especially Sub-
Saharan Africa)
 The nature, agencies and mechanisms of globalisation
 Mapping comparisons in the literature
• IEA TIMSS study prominent data source during the 2000s (US and
Japan), with the OECD TALIS programme and the IEA Teacher
Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M)
 Emphasis on policy?

28. Themes in the literature
(Numbers refer to 51 ERIC search results)
Teachers, teaching and learning (31 references)
• ITE/teacher education/teacher training (18)
• Teacher induction (3)
• Professional development and professional learning communities (6)
Teacher policy, focused on policy formation, governance, power (13)
• teacher voice in policy formation at various scales, including labour
conflict (5)
Labour market, workforce modelling, supply, demand, migration (11)
Teacher attitudes (16)
Certification, accountability, evaluation (6)

29. Initial coding
3 strands of literature:
• a ‘teaching and learning-centric’ literature with a strong focus on teacher
education, pedagogy, social and cultural context, levels of professional
autonomy, and opportunities for career-long professional development
• a neo-institutionalist perspective concerned with cross-cultural patterns of
teaching practices and beliefs, and institutional change regarding teachers’
careers
 Recent emphasis on tension, conflict and situated sense-making
(Akiba, 2017)
• a critical literature focused on domination and power relations in the
global education policy field
Strengths, limitations and epistemic gains?
What are we missing? Where is the neo-liberal literature?

30. Moving on
Coding procedures
 4 dimensions (social, work, political, scale)
 QDA Miner and Wordstat
The review and the project?
 Europe and the global field – regionalisation and globalisation
 The cases of England, French-speaking Belgium, and France
 Taking stock and looking ahead
Feedback and comments welcome
tore.sorensen@uclouvain.be