Reconstructing teaching and teacher education: Ontario educational policy documents, 1987--1997

In this dissertation I use Critical Policy Analysis to examine a series of documents published in Ontario during the period 1986 to 1997 under four different provincial governments: The Liberal Minority Government, The Liberal Majority Government, The New Democratic Government and the Progressive Conservative Government. Firstly, the dissertation examines the influence of government on the development of policy related to teachers and teacher education.;This documentary journey takes the reader through a demand for a college of teachers introduced in the Final Report (1987) of the Teacher Education steering Committee to the Report The Privilege of Professionalism (1995) produced by the Ontario College of Teachers Implementation Committee.;The policy documents examined in this dissertation were produced for and/or by the Teacher Education Review Steering Committee; the Teacher Education Council, Ontario; The Royal Commission on Learning; and The Ontario College of Teachers' Implementation Committee. The documents are first set in their socio-political and economic context to provide a macro analytical framework. Then the documents are examined through a micro analytical framework. Secondly, this approach documents the process by which teachers are reconstructed as 'professionals' in need of particular forms of teacher education throughout their careers. Teacher education itself becomes more highly regulated and is also used as a form of regulating teachers.