Abstract

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Title:: How to Protect Professionalism in Education Reform: An Institutional Analysis

Keywords:: professionalism in education; professional sphere; public sphere; state sphere; institutional analysis

Abstract:: At present, the field of education, as an intersection of the state sphere, the public sphere, and the professional sphere, are under different or even conflicting influences from these different spheres, for each of them has its characteristic leading force, operation logic and institutional framework. Such a complexity, therefore, should be accommodated by the education reform. Currently, the issue of how to protect the professionalism in education is becoming increasingly prominent due to the facts of great concern like: the school management is under too much government control; schools are run by entrepreneurs and government officials; and educational experts are supervised by non-experts. As a professional sphere, the field of education, different from the typical state and public spheres, has its own institutional construction and should follow its own intrinsic logic. All this should be taken into consideration when we make institutional designs for education reform.