Perpetual cycles of education reform in Australian schools have significantly impacted teachers and their development. The global narrative of increasing accountability and performativity within education systems has demonstrated the impact of reform, however, little appears in extant literature to address how teachers navigate or negotiate reform. This qualitative case study investigated how a group of teachers in a regional setting of New South Wales (NSW) engaged in the provision of a suite of professional learning experiences during a period of significant reform. The teachers undertaking the professional learning navigated and negotiated demands of the reform to meet their needs and utilised their professional skills and knowledge to empathetically support others. Utilising Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Theory and practice-related thinking tools, the research explores the participants’ fields of power; in this case, the local (rural NSW) and state fields within the field of Australian education, and their alignments with the broader global field of education. The findings of the case study showed the existence of an isomorphic (collaborative) habitus among the participants that resulted from the professional learning experience, the existence of a dual field structure resulting from accreditation policy implementation, the subsequent empathetic Othering by performative players within the field, and a tendency for low engagement in and value attributed to online or mandated professional learning activities.
The research findings highlight the impact of policy decisions on the teachers’ perspectives of professional development amid a period of flux and dynamic reform, and a disconnect between the field of teachers’ work and the broader policy field. Recommendations from the research propose ‘Teacher Directed Development’ and the establishment of a ‘Permaculture of Practice’ to create self-perpetuating conditions for teachers’ growth in practice.