Benny, in Ontario Canada, the teaching profession is governed by the Ontario College of Teachers. It is modelled after the General Teaching Council of Scotland. These are two countries I would examine since teachers must be a member of their union and a member of the self-regulatory body.  This dual membership is not very common. I hope this helps. 

Thankyou Christine for your quick reply. This model of compulsory membership is unusual. I will look into to see if this has an effect in teacher' public status. 

Hello Benny,

If your question is solely on teacher status my answer might be an anomaly or an outlier if using quantitative research. The teachers union in New Mexico is very week but teachers status in high. Several factors possibly account for this a) cultural views of teachers or professors, b) values in education, c) free babysitting.

The union being so week however does have impact on the students due to teachers who want to address social issues such as racism, sexiism, and LGBTQIAA issues are let go.

Hope this helps

Douglas 

Benny

In Colombia there are several teacher unions. But there is one which pretends to congretate all the teachers over the whole country it is nominated as FECODE (Federeación Colombiana de Educadores). Nevertheless it is not influential on educational policies; and the teacher status is low in Colombia. It seems to me that this condition of the teachers in Colombia is due, in certain way, to that scanty of influential power of FECODE.

How do you define "the professional status of teaching?" And how will you measure it?

Hello Bruce,

If one belives that measuring is a necessary condition for science it may be tough. I however am of the view that measurments are not a necessay condition for science. I am a CST and an interptivist. I would ask the parents as to how they regard teachers. Maybe a few questions on who would you invite over for diiner a teacher or X,Y,Z...ect. Look for themes code and report.

There are many articles out there to use..

Hope this helps

Douglas

. 

Thank you for your response. I understand interpretive measures. There still needs to be a definition, so there is a common understanding, and also a way to compare how people feel or what they believe. You have provided one way. I was asking the author how he defines professional status and how he would measure it.

Benny,

In New York State, we have traditionally had very strong union support as teachers and we have two such unions active today. However, over the last five years or so, with the advent of high stakes testing and student results tied to the teachers' published scores/ rankings, as well as linked to the viability of some of the schools themselves, the unions have caved to political pressure and have lost power, to some extent. Public school teachers are under a great deal of pressure as for-profit charter schools and their well funded lobbyists vilify teachers in the press and through some very high profile politicians, such as our governor, who recently has been quoted as saying he will "bust" the public school "monopoly". He is allied with big money for-profit charter school corporations and hedge fund managers-turned-school-investors. Needless to say, teachers and their professional status and regard are suffering during this worrisome time. good luck with your project!

I wish to thank you all for your contributions. It seems that there has not been much direct research in the role of teacher unions in itheir role of decreasing or improving the social status of the teaching proffession by their policies and actions, I am still early on in deciding how to deal with this topic, whether there might be a real need to survey teacher opinion on their union and its form of action. I do read in what you have written' that this is a real issue in the teacher staff rooms.  Should any more information come to your knowledge from your countries, I would love to read it for comparison. Again, Thankyou, Benny  

I have two areas in which I can engage your question about teachers unions.

1. At the university level in the USA teachers unions have had a negative affect on the competitive quality of scholarship and research. There have been cases wherein the introduction of teachers unions in the USA has discouraged high quality professors from staying. Teachers unions have discouraged competitive quality. For this reason states such as Virginia (Commonwealth of Virginia) and others do not have such unions at the universities.

2. At the high school levels in the USA teachers unions have discouraged competitive advancement based upon academic quality, competition and merit. The unions along with colleges of education, beginning in the late 1960's, have discouraged teachers from taking the same high quality academic courses in mathematics and science that students who may go into areas such as science and engineering would take. This has all been  exacerbated  by the Federal Common Core initiative where the content for instruction has not been prepared by high quality professionals in mathematics, science and engineering. Hence many states such as Virginia and Kansas have rejected this federal common core initiative in favor of developing their own model curricula in state.

David Rine

Professor Emeritus , The Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering, The George Mason Univrsity

Hello David, Do you kow of articles or of any papers which have been publicised with this content?  Did these teacher unions actively discourage competitive quality through actions and policy?  There are many who feel that unionisation of teaching, while it protects teachers from problematic employment situations, does not effectively lift their proffessional social status through policy and actions. Quite often many of these comments are tainted by personal political stances on unionisation whether it be neo-liberal or sical democratic or marxist. (As in the Uk during the Thatcherist educational reforms)  I am looking for research that could be a base for comparison to the local situation here in Israel. In reading the recent (2013) Varkey-Gems survey, while there is plenty data on teacher status in the eyes of parents and students, ther is almost no data on the role of techer bodies in this area. I will look into what you have contributed. Thankyou.

I have recently written a paper listed below which talks about how teacher voice is linked to social and political reconstruction in South Africa. It review the role of the teacher union movement in South Africa:

Samuel M 2014. South African teacher voices: recurring resistances and reconstructions for teacher education and development, Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy, 40:5, 610-621

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2014.956546

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02607476.2014.956546.

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/UIZFXYEh2ZmQxHGtVF3F/full

I would appreciate your comments on the paper.

Benny,

Since the late 60's and the introduction of Federal Department of Education and Teachers Unions the USA public schools and adult literacy has gone down hill internationally. Many of our teachers are not well prepared to teach subject matter well in their own disciplines. They take weak course preparation work while they should be subject matter prepared at the same level as their colleagues in engineering, sciences and applied mathematics. You  may wish to review the attached article. Let me know what else you need from me.  

Dear Professor Stein,

Unions and their impact on the public schools in America is, in my estimation, an understudied area. Teaching is one of the most heavily unionized work forces, yet little is understood about its effects. Opinions proliferate, but research supporting those opinions often lags.Your request extends the need for research and dialogue.

In response to your query, Case Cobb, University of Connecticut, and I studied the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of being a professional and being a member of a union. It was an exploratory study. Our conclusion is that it is tangled. Teachers think of themselves as professionals, yet they want the protection of a union. They want a contract but they perceive that the contract cannot reach those difficult places of professional practice. Some find the protection that a union provides to be necessary to their sense of professionalism while others find that the union to often protects incompetence thus diminishing their sense of professionalism. Teachers act as professionals and shift to acting as union members when there is a perceived threat.

If you would like to review our findings, you can find them at the following.

DeMitchell, T.A. & Cobb, C.D. Teachers: Their union and their profession. A tangled relationship. 212 Education Law Reporter 1 (2006).

DeMitchell, T.A. & Cobb, C.D. Teacher as Union Member and Teacher as Professional: The Voice of the Teacher. 220 Education Law Reporter 25(2007).

The issue of the impact of teacher unions on other school effects is discussed by such writers as Caroline Hoxby and Terry M. Moe. I found Tom Loveless’ edited volume, Conflicting Mission? Teachers Unions and Education Reform, to be quite informative and useful.

Thanks for starting this conversation. The responses from our colleagues are helpful as I work on the second edition of my book, Labor Relations in Education: Policies, Politics, and Practices.

Regards,

Todd A. DeMitchell

John and H. Irene Peters Professor of Education

Department of Education & the Justice Program

University of New Hampshire

Thankyou for all your references,

I found them most helpful. Benny Stein

hi, perhaps the attached article might be useful.tqvm

Hello Azizan,

Thankyou for your contribution. Having already submitted my paper unfortunately I will not be in need for more information in the near future. You attention is most appreciated.  

Benny, if you have collected some articles in this area, it would be great if you send some to me. I am looking into teacher unions in general. As you have noted, the articles are hard to come by.

IF you have not looked into the BCTF, please do so. The BCTF is the British Columbia Teachers Federation.