Social Discourses on the Teacher Performance Assessment: Media Tales, Twitter Tweets and Leadership Surveys

Abstract

This paper explores the introduction of the new Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) for graduate teachers in Australia. We investigate how the broader discussion around TPAs has been understood by multiple agents during an eight-month period from January 2019 to August 2019. Data includes legacy media, social media tweets and a survey of school leaders. The analysis draws on Bernsteinian (1975) theory about the way particular social relations produce differing sentiments of social unity. While eschewing a strict binary, legacy media was characterised by a mechanical solidarity which promoted the TPA as akin to a test. Contributions to social media and responses to the survey suggested an orientation to organic solidarity and a recognition of the complex inter-dependence of specialised roles within initial teacher education. These diverse social discourses carry the potential to influence the broader commission of what counts as graduate teacher quality.