Since public schooling was introduced in the nineteenth century, teachers in many western countries have endeavoured to achieve professional recognition. For a short period in the latter part of the twentieth century, professionalism was seen as a discourse of resistance or the "enemy" of economic rationalism and performativity. However,…

This essay argues that there are educational situations in which interlocutionary misbehaviour in the form of withholding "good will" can have educational value. It describes an exchange between a teacher and a student in which the teacher withheld good will, and analyzes this exchange through conceptual frameworks of performative contradiction…

The current cult of the personality of the teacher and personal development as an official goal in education policy documents are problematic as they make it difficult to distinguish a teacher from a seducer, thus blurring the distinction between education and therapy. In order to describe the pedagogical bond proper the article draws on Lacanian…