PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN EDUCATION IN AN ERA OF CONTRACTUALISM - POSSIBILITIES, PROBLEMS AND PARADOXES

RECENT policy changes have encouraged the development of a contractual ist environment in Australian education, where social relations are or ganised around the promise of each party to fulfil particular obligati ons. Contractualism is evident not only in moves to expand contract em ployment and to organise service delivery around a contractual relatio nship between sec-vice providers and service consumer agencies, but al so in government efforts to privatise public services so that individu al consumers make choices about the kinds of services they will receiv e. The focus of this paper is particularly on the impact of the contra ctualist environment of teachers' professional practice. The paper dra ws on interview data to document what teachers perceive to be changing in education and in their professional practice, and to identify oppo rtunities and constraints in this shifting policy context. On the basi s of these data, some of the challenges and dilemmas of professional p ractice in an age of contractualism will be discussed.